Blue light
by Elizabeth.M.Kelli
Summary: This is the story of another character who is torn between two world. She has to choose between her childhood love of Darkover, or her adult reasn with the Terran Empire can she choose?
1. Chapter 1

Marri, my name is Marri

Marri, my name is Marri. Or rather it's Margali, but some people find that hard to pronounce, so I go by Marri instead. I'm what you might call a child of two worlds. I lived on a planet known by all people of the Terran Empire as Cottman IV, but I've been unable to think of it as such. I know it as Darkover.

You might wonder then why I say a _child_ of two worlds that's because I moved from my comfortable life on Darkover when I was seven years old. Then I moved around a bit, I'd lived on seven planets by the time I reached my twelfth birthday. Of course I have to really think about it to figure out when my birthday really is, because the names of months are different on different worlds, and we had a tenday system of twenty eight hour days on Darkover.

But wait you might say, that's seven worlds why would I call myself a child of _two_ worlds then? Well it's quite simple, at age twelve we moved to Terra, and there we have stayed. I'm now sixteen years old. If I were still on Darkover I'd be considered an adult, but here on Terra I'm still a child.

My father passed away several months ago, and so my mother has decided she would like to go back to Darkover, to see her kinsmen again, and to be with her family, while she grieves. So I'll be coming with her. I don't remember much about my life back then, but I can speak several Darkovan languages easily. _Caheunga_ and _Casta_ are the ones I speak best, well besides Terran.

The red sun actually feels good on my eyes. And I realized I wouldn't have to wear those stupid sunglasses I had packed into my only bag I was allowed to bring. My mom declared it as such. We each brought one small light bag each, I could have brought more, I only the Terrans weren't so greedy. I brought a family picture, my sunglasses, a few favorite pieces of jewelry, a hairbrush, and a change of clothes. That was it. My mom brought even less, she brought some money, and our Terran identification.

That Terran identification? It think we could well have done without it, except that they checked it the second we stepped of that ship. But after that they didn't check it again until we were already on our way to the house my mom has possessed since her father died, leaving only her when she was my age. So she got everything her father had, even though it was very much against custom. My mom had been an only child, her father had been an only child, his father had been an only child, it went on for twelve or so generations. So the only other people who could have possibly inherited were rather far removed cousins. But I knew that by the laws of Darkover if my mother were to drop dead this second, I would get everything.

The house was as I remembered from childhood, it was well kept up and it was small But this house seemed as much home, if not more than the house we still owned on Terra. I supposed someday I would go back and live there, but I hoped it was a long time from now. I really like Darkover, and you are conditioned to everything you're ever going to get used to by the time you're ten, so I guess I was used to travelling, and to Darkovan customs, and that was all I was ever going to be used to. I even read once that your preference in men was set by the time you were seven. If that's true, then I guess I need a Darkovan man. And I like the customs of Darkover better than those of Terra, so I guessed I would most likely find a guy here more likely than me ever ending up with any of those five guys I dated on Terra.

"Marri!" That was my mother calling from downstairs. I had finished unpacking, I mean I didn't have that much stuff.

"Yeah mom?" I called back down as I made my way towards her voice downstairs.

"Someone's come to visit, they'd like to see their young kinswoman," My mother called back as I reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Yes mom?" I asked as I stepped into the formal sitting room.

"Oh," It was a woman sitting in one of the chairs who said this. She sounded quite dismayed. I looked at myself and could guess why. I was dressed in a short plaid skirt, and a red tank top. I had on tall red socks and black mary-janes. My hair was tied so I had a lot of it into a ponytail on the side of my head, and the rest of it just hung, wherever it could fit. My mom however was dressed for entertaining. She had on a nice Darkovan dress, and the soft indoor slippers that went with it. _Her_ hair was pulled back with a cute clasp shaped like a butterfly, she had worn that clasp everyday of my life, it was almost as I her life depended on it. But I knew it was her decency, not her life on the line.

"Margali, this is your kinswoman. Her name is Ysabet," My mom said with a little bit of a warning to her voice.

"Hello kinswoman," I said politely. I had never heard of her, I was pretty sure the only family I had was my mom, and my dad's parents.

"Hello, I've mostly come, to test you," Ysabet said quietly. I was a little confused when she pulled a little blue gem on a chain out of a little pouch. But I sat down across from her anyway.

Ysabet looked into the gem and it started to glare with lights. It was really bright, and all those patterns made me feel nauseas, so I looked away. My kinswoman looked surprised and told me to look into it again. So I did. But this time I felt even worse. I fainted forward (which I only did when they forget to give me tablets to make me unconscious before they give me shots), and the last thing I hard before the rush of colors and lights which always accompanied passing out was Ysabet say "I can't believe it! We though the MacAran powers were dead!" Then it was gone and I was drowning in lashes of color, and light. But this time all the light was blue.

I came to about ten minutes later (I was never out for long). And there was a blue stone on a chain resting on my chest. Someone had laid me out on the couch, and that weird kinswoman of mine was gone. I picked up the stone and looked at it. It was full of blue lights and patterns but it wasn't making me sick. I watched it closer and closer until my mom suddenly cried out in alarm "Marri!" then I passed out again.


	2. Chapter 2

In the week since my kinswoman had visited I had found that I was physically uncomfortable when I set that strange blue stone down. I had also discovered that I felt very sick. I was dizzy, and I kept passing out. I don't know what was causing it, but it seemed to be going away, a little bit at least. At least I wasn't passing out right now.

My mom kept giving some weird drink, which didn't seem to touch my mouth at all But it was helping with the sickness. My mom kept panicking, like I was going to die But I really didn't feel that sick. Well I take that back, I was very sick. Never before in my life had I ever been sick enough to be considered as having a fever, nor had I ever walked in waking dreams. But that was just what I have been doing this last week. But except for passing out, and disappearing deep into my consciousness I felt fine.

In fact to quote an old song from Terra "I'm not dead yet! I can dance and I can sing! No, I'm not dead yet!" This seemed to be the exact words to throw at my mother. Who, quite oblivious to my rebellious thoughts, was spooning more of that strange drug into a glass of well watered wine. I didn't feel like reminding my mom that I wasn't of a legal drinking age yet, and so I shouldn't be given wine at all, but I was tired, and my lips felt too heavy to lift enough to get a single sound out.

I woke up to that strange kinswoman, but I did not wake up in my room. I was in some strange, well furnished room. It was most definitely Darkovan, you could tell by the fact that I wasn't in a room full of stark white walls and uncomfortable beds. No this bed was filled with feathers, and I could feel a feather poking my back as I shifted to the side a little.

"Good, when your mother contacted me she feared you would die. It is very unhealthy to have threshold sickness at your age," my kinswoman turned and took something from the table next to the bed, and I couldn't help groaning at that sweetly spicy scent. It was more of whatever my mom had been dosing me with.

_Poor child, her mother never had Threshold Sickness, and knew naught to do but dose her daughter with far too much _kirian_._

I looked at the other woman suspiciously; she really should not speak so of me when I was standing just in front of her. Or rather when I was laying helplessly unable to move much on the bed in front of her…

"Yes, you heard me didn't you?" Ysabet asked curiously. I nodded my head; I didn't feel able to do anything else.

"Then your _laran_ is strong indeed. You have only been asleep a few hours since you passed out and would not respond to your mother, no matter what she did. And you were in the grips of threshold sickness only a week before that. But you must keep that blue jewel with you at all times. Especially because you've now keyed it to yourself," Ysabet explained, clouding my already fuzzed brain even farther.

"Keyed it? What's that mean? I think I'm supposed to know, but my mind's all messed up and…" I trailed off my heavy lips barely letting the words out.

"You've keyed that matrix to your _laran_, it's just a rough key, but it's enough," Ysabet didn't bother to add her thought _That was a better rough keying than I've ever seen before, talent indeed_. I still wonder why I heard her.

I nodded quietly as she lifted the cup to my lips. I drank it obediently and closed my eyes, they didn't want to do anything else anyway.

"Are you feeling better today?" Ysabet asked soon after I woke up again.

"Yes, I can talk normally, no headaches, or pain, no delusions that I can tell, I think I'm fine now," I answered simply.

"So precise," Ysabet commented allowing me to sit up.

"Of course, what else was I going to be with roughly half my life lived among Terrans?" I asked pushing hair rough from dried sweat out of my face. I grimaced at the feel. Anything but gross hair would have been fine.

"You'll be wanting a bath won't you?" Ysabet asked rhetorically, she knew quite well that I wanted a bath. I was sticky from sweat, and my hair felt horrible from a little over a week of not being washed.

I nodded and she had a servant escort me to a room with a huge tub. Well it wasn't really huge, but it was bigger than the Terrans would ever give you. The water was scented with something familiar, but if I knew what it was it would be amazing.

I took a very long bath, it was long enough that my feet and hands were pruned so badly that it hurt to stand on my feet. But I was clean and warm, at last.

"Margali?" Ysabet asked from the doorway as I dressed myself.

"Yes, kinswoman?" I answered politely. I was starting to get the hang of Darkovan manners again, after so many years of the knowledge hiding in the deepest recesses of my subconscious mind.

"If you feel well enough you should come eat dinner with everyone," It didn't really sound like a request to me, no matter how nicely it was phrased.

"Who is everyone?" I asked curiously.

"Well it's the council season, so everyone is just about all the _comyn_ on Darkover," Ysabet said with a light bit of laughter, "Your mother has come up to the castle too."

"Mother? Why didn't she come to get me then?" I asked picking up the butterfly clasp like my mom's I had found a little while ago.

"She's feeling guilty. The _leronis_ should not have scolded her so. She was not to know what to do. She was an only child, and she had never lived through threshold sickness, and neither had any of her foster siblings. But that's beside the point," Ysabet sighed deeply, as if everything were falling apart, "_Laran _is becoming rarer by the day."

"Fine, I'll tell her that she wasn't to blame and I'm already perfectly fine," I told her pulling hair back from in front of my ear and clipping it back with the clasp. Ysabet looked scandalized, "My neck is covered isn't it?" I asked and passed by her through the open doorway.


End file.
